Last week, hackers operating under the Anonymous banner broken into servers for HBGary, a security firm whose COO, Aaron Barr had declared his intention to reveal the identities of key people operating as Anonymous. The hackers released 50,000-some emails from HBGary, including a series of slides presented to Bank of America by HBGary and two other security firms, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies.

The slide presentation proposes a series of dirty tricks to neutralize Wikileaks and its supporters, including targetted attacks on Salon's Glenn Greenwald, as well as infrastructure attacks, disinformation campaigns, and sabotage. There's no indication that Bank of America signed off on this plan.

People get paid to come up with crap like this? The whole presentation boils down to publicly available information, some superficial data gathering attempts and then just a single page dedicated to an actual strategy which consists of vague ideas of what type of activities would need to take place. It would have be fantastic if it turns out BoA actually sigend on to this as we’d then have verifiable information that its run by idiots. Holding off on releasing the BofA leak is turning out to be a great strategy, though, as the build up brings more characters like this out of the woodwork.

What I like is the touchingly quaint idea that neutralizing an opinion leader will take the heat off them. It’s similar to the Goodfellahs of Egypt thinking they can buffalo the Street by co-opting yesterday’s leaders.

Parts of the document read like L. Ron Hubbard’s instructions to the OSA (Office of Special Affairs) for dealing with “Suppressive Persons.” See “dead agenting.”

That hero’s name is Glenn Greenwald with 2 N’s in the first name, btw.

The following is my fanboy review of Glenn:

Reading his stuff always cheers me up, maybe because of the fact of how brilliant his exposure of the nakedly corrupt system is. He says sometimes his readers ask him why he sounds so angry, and he replied by saying, how could he not be angry at the evil done all around the world done by the government that “represents” him.

My own little pet theory is that HBGary has an employee or two that is 4channer.

I mean these internet kids eventually grow up and get real jobs working with computers and stuff. I think it’s funny that infosec companies just assume none of their extremely nerdy and socially awkward employees is a /b/tard or member of anon. All it takes is one guy to give up some admin information for the lulz

The best part is that after the Anonymous attack, a representative of the company made sure that after the public had been shown how vulnerable the company is to attack and how easily their own vital systems were compromised, he drew attention to the fact that this company vies to be contracted to protect our government’s electronic systems.

This is somewhat like Pinkerton running a TV commercial with footage of one of their guards accidentally firing their holstered weapon into their own leg.

“The Killian documents controversy (also referred to as Memogate, Rathergate or Rathergate[1]) involved six documents critical of President George W. Bush’s service in the Air National Guard in 1972â€“73.”

I think most of us are unaware of how the wealthy, people or corporations, can attack real people. And do. (Supreme Court decisions aside I don’t consider the wealthy or corporations to be real people.)

I am reminded of The Greatest Vendetta on Earth (on Salon) about how the head of Ringling Brother Barnum and Bailey paid former top CIA agents to torment a writer for 8 years because she wrote an article he didn’t like.

Some of the actions proposed by HBGary seem very like what has happened in the 911 truth movement. I wonder if HBGary has former CIA and FBI agents on staff.

You’ve got to love the fevered imaginations of a bunch of folks who grew up during the Cold War, read about COINTELPRO, and thought “That’s awesome! I’d love to get paid to do that to someone someday!”

I really thought that Palantir was made up of basically good guys. I personally know enough of them to be shocked that their company would ever put together a slide like this. (Heck, I’m almost ready to believe that this slide is a fake document, disinformation spread by their competitors). They apparently suggest… Disinformation? Sabotage? Fake documents? Cyber-attacks to violate the privacy/anonymity of submitters? Good grief, I want to write these guys and ask; What would your mothers think of this?

And for anyone who’s curious, and for the sake of balance; In the articles below, they are portrayed far more positively, much more in tune with my personal experiences of them.

(Supreme Court decisions aside I don’t consider the wealthy or corporations to be real people.)

If you’re an American citizen with your own 3000 MHz personal computer and a place to plug it in, you’re already wealthier than about 80% of the people on Earth. Let’s hope those downtrodden billions consider you a real person.